British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier disembark from the “Northern Lights” after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hosted the Foreign Ministers from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and the European Union for a cruise around Boston Harbor in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 24, 2016, amid a daylong series of meetings of the so-called Quintet in the Secretary’s homestate of Massachusetts. [State Department Photo/ Public Domain]
Yesterday’s vote in the British Conservative Party confirmed that Boris Johnson will become the United Kingdom’s next prime minister.
Johnson beat his opponent, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt, by a margin of 92,153 to 46,656 among Conservative voters. Prime Minister Theresa May had stepped down after her efforts to reach a deal with the European Union regarding the UK’s exit from the bloc were repeatedly rejected in the House of Commons.
The Conservative Party is currently a minority government, relying on the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to get measures passed. Since the prime minister post is not directly elected, the ruling political party’s leader automatically becomes head of government.
The 55-year-old has a massive vocabulary and is known for his colorful columns and even more colorful insults. In 2013, when he was mayor, he called the London assembly “great, supine, protoplasmic, invertebrate jellies,” getting a laugh even from those who had just voted to remove him from the assembly room.
Brexiteers have assured their critics that technological improvements can make the process smooth and unseemly, and that tariffs would only come into effect if the EU were to take that step. From a UK standpoint, no border would need to be erected.
If he manages to strike a good deal for the United Kingdom, he will go down in history as one of the UK’s most effective leaders.
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